רְאֵה בְעָנְיֵנוּ. וְרִיבָה רִיבֵנוּ. וּגְאָלֵנוּ גְאוּלָה שְׁלֵמָה מְהֵרָה לְמַעַן שְׁמֶךָ. כִּי קל גּואֵל חָזָק אָתָּה. בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’, גּואֵל יִשרָאֵל – Look, please, upon our affliction, and defend our cause: and redeem us speedily with complete redemption for the sake of Your Name; because You are a Mighty Redeemer. Blessed are You, Hashem, Redeemer of Israel.
Redemption
When we hear redemption, we typically think of Mashiach and ultimate redemption.
But there are specific blessings for that, gathering the exiles, rebuilding Jerusalem, restoring the house of David, and restoring the order of sacrifices; this is about a more generalized form of redemption.
Transcending a mere call for empathy, we request divine acknowledgment of suffering, hinting at a redemption that is both existential and spiritual rather than solely the physical redemption of Jews from exile. There is a broader continuum of redemption that runs deep into our personal lives and involves difficult circumstances, internal transformations, and enlightenment, a redemption of spiritual or existential suffering, the kind that transcends geographical or physical constraints.
The other blessings articulate a request for ultimate redemption; this is the blessing for every redemption we need between here and there.
רְאֵה בְעָנְיֵנוּ – Our pain
Lord, please see our pain.
Who doesn’t want their pain acknowledged?
The word for affliction and pain here also encompasses the concept of poverty בְעָנְיֵנוּ / עני. This extends beyond the surface-level interpretation of poverty as a lack of financial resources and probes deeper into the existential dimensions of insufficiency and lack.
Our sages teach that a wealthy person is someone happy with what they have. This aphorism profoundly associates wealth with contentment and fulfillment rather than an abundance of material possessions. Our sages didn’t define someone happy; they defined someone wealthy, making a piercing observation that the experience of wealth is more defined by your relationship with what you have than how much you accumulate.
This redefinition of wealth challenges the conventional metrics of material success and prosperity, suggesting that the essence of wealth lies in the subjective experience of contentment and vice versa. If you have everything but aren’t satisfied, you are poor and miserable and have nothing at all.
Our sages suggest that if you can buy whatever you want or need, that isn’t wealth. It’s not a question of price sensitivity; it’s something more profound. Human desire is inherently unbounded; whatever you have, there is always something bigger that’s out of reach, something you can’t have.
It’s impossible to have everything you want, but it can be a real blessing to want what you have, and if you want what you have, you will always have what you like.
The nature of this world is insufficiency; everyone needs things. Everyone needs health, money, love, fertility, happiness, success.
We ask God to see us in our poverty, in our lack and insufficiency, our experience of pain for all the things we need but don’t have, emotional, spiritual, or physical, acknowledging the vast spectrum of human desires and pain that can arise not just from the absence of material goods but from unfulfilled aspirations and unmet needs.
The yearning for things we don’t have or the conditions we wish were different can be a source of torture; this is especially true when these desires touch on fundamental aspects of our well-being, such as health, love, or a sense of belonging.
Moreover, this invites a deeply personal and subjective view because our sense of lack is rooted in self-perception rather than an objective lack. The experience of pain is real; whether the source is real or imagined, our subjective experiences of pain and inadequacy are as impactful as any physical affliction.
When someone thinks they’re not good enough when you’re perfectly great, if they have body image issues but are perfectly attractive, does it matter what anyone else thinks?
Our perceptions, beliefs, and feelings shape our reality, often as powerfully as the material conditions of our lives. Our feelings about poverty or wealth are subjective, shaped by our attitudes toward what we have and lack. People who see themselves as poor, regardless of their actual circumstances, live within the constraints of that perception, which can limit their ability to appreciate their existing blessings and capacities.
Recognizing that our human experiences are deeply subjective, we ask God to see our pain, acknowledging our suffering from our internal point of view – רְאֵה בְעָנְיֵנוּ.
The fight
R’ Moshe Feinstein commented on the shocking assimilation statistics of American Jewry in his day as a reflection on the generational shift in perception and commitment to Jewish life and values. He suggested that despite witnessing their parents’ enormous self-sacrifice for the sake of Jewish observance, with so many men and women refusing to work on Shabbos at a time that meant losing their jobs every single week, children in such homes only ever saw the downside of the sacrifice; they heard their parents sigh how hard it was a to be a Jew, and absorbed a narrative emphasizing the hardships of Jewish life, possibly at the expense of experiencing its depth, beauty, and meaning.
It’s not enough to fight the fight; we must also have the right mentality.
As with all our prayers, we pray in the plural, not the singular, for my pain, among everyone else’s.
Sometimes, the thing that’s bothering us isn’t what bothers us; it is just a symptom, and the surface manifestation can mask a deeper, more complex issue. We may aspire for goodness and to do the right thing, but in practical reality, we live with a disconnect and inconsistency. We ask God to see our pain, but also within it, inside and past it as well – בְעָנְיֵנוּ.
In the modern landscape, we live in a world where our sense of personal and collective self is under relentless the omnipotent forces of media and consumer culture overtly and subconsciously everywhere we turn. This environment is meticulously crafted by highly skilled professionals in marketing and technology, whose work, though often aimed at engagement and sales, inadvertently fosters a culture of comparison and inadequacy. Every advertisement, product, screen, and social media platform is optimized to capture attention and instigate desire, urging us toward an unending pursuit of more. This constant exposure creates a pervasive atmosphere where comparisons with others become routine in daily life. This leads to widespread feelings of inadequacy and dissatisfaction that form a significant aspect of human pain in our day.
This phenomenon is not merely a side effect of modern commerce and technology but a reflection of deeper societal values that equate personal worth with material success and visible achievement. In this context, the relentless barrage of idealized images and narratives amplifies our insecurities, highlighting what we lack compared to the polished, curated lives presented in public.
These forces are so powerful that they crowd out reality, and people struggle to internalize positive affirmations or recognize their value, regardless of their accomplishments, which speaks to a deeper, internal source of discomfort and dissatisfaction.
This inadequacy is not rooted in who we are; we ask God to see past the surface and see the root cause – בְעָנְיֵנוּ.
Redemption from stuckness
As the Jewish People prepared for the Exodus, God had Moshe instruct them to take Egyptian gold and silver. Our sages teach that this was partly as reparations money for years of enslavement but mostly in fulfillment of God’s promise to Avraham that his descendants would leave Egypt not just as a free people but with great wealth as well.
Significantly, God sought their enrichment before they arrived in the Land of Israel. By providing the Jewish People with material wealth before they entered the land, God made it clear that the beauty and value of Israel were not to be equated with material prosperity, preemptively countering any mistaken notion that the worth of the Promised Land, and by extension the worth of the redemption itself, could be measured in gold and silver. It was a lesson in priorities, emphasizing that the fulfillment of God’s promises of redemption lies beyond the material realm.
This contrasts with many religious and secular visions of utopia, which often imagine their ideal state in terms of physical and material abundance. As the Rambam clearly states, our sages never dreamed of the Messianic age in material terms of wealth or power but simply for the removal of subjugation from foreign powers and influences, for the freedom and opportunity for spiritual and religious fulfillment, heralding an age of universal enlightenment.
The bloody pages of Jewish history show how the Jewish People have been the mistreated subjects of one abusive regime or another time and again. Removal of subjugation is powerful.
The notion extends beyond the political or nationalistic realm and also encompasses broader freedom from subjugation to foreign ideologies that distract or detract from the core values of Judaism. Even without direct engagement, the surrounding culture and prevailing ideologies exert an influence on individual and collective consciousness.
Like the fish swimming in the ocean, oblivious to what water is, we are utterly immersed in a foreign world, saturated and shaped by ideologies we cannot even name.
The Baal Shem Tov teaches that exile means forgetting.
The complexities of modern life are a minefield to navigate, with material temptations, societal pressures, and existential challenges, and the mediocre values and second-rate ideologies taking their toll physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
We can walk out of Egypt with all the gold and silver, all the trinkets and shiny things. But that has nothing to do with the promised land.
The journey to redemption lies in our ability to live with purpose and compassion and in the wisdom that the true measures of wealth and success in our lives and communities are in our commitment to our values and to each other.
וְרִיבָה רִיבֵנוּ – the fight of your life
Who are you fighting?
Some battles are easy in the sense that it’s clear who the enemy is.
In historical warfare, the battlefield was orienting because it subliminally communicated massive amounts of information instantly and straightforwardly. Both sides would face off in lines in sharp and distinct uniforms, sometimes as starkly as blue versus red. The lines were clearly drawn: us against them. It was clear who your allies and enemies were, who stood by your side, and who opposed you. Both sides would line up, facing each other, with the objective for the invaders being to push forward and for the defenders to push back, attempting to move this frontline in their favor. This battle line is clear-cut, with each side trying to gain ground, literally inch by inch if necessary. If they’re shooting at you, shoot them back. Easy.
Ideally, moral decisions would be straightforward, with right and wrong clearly marked.
But modern warfare and morality aren’t like that.
In modern warfare, combatants regularly blend into the civilian population, wearing plain clothes instead of uniforms. The enemy is not easily identifiable; they’re hidden among the very people you’re trying to protect.
The danger is enormous because the enemy is hidden in plain sight. The threat can be right under your nose, and you don’t realize it until it’s too late; how do you win a fight you don’t realize you are in?
This scenario mirrors the subtle and often deceptive nature of the evil inclination. It’s not externalized as an obvious adversary, a little red demon on your shoulder, but is a shadow aspect of the self integrated and interwoven within our thoughts, impulses, and desires, making it challenging to discern.
Even worse, what if the enemy intercepts signals intelligence and corrupts allied command instructions, and you take friendly fire? What if they act under a false flag and intentionally misrepresent their allegiance?
In fact, one of the more recent developments is cyber warfare, in which the attacks are not physical but digital, completely invisible to the naked eye, and occur with the technology integral to our daily lives. That’s actually a lot like what the battle for morality is.
This battle requires vigilance, strategy, and the development of an internal moral compass. Cyber security experts employ firewalls, encryption, and continuous monitoring to protect against unseen digital threats; we must cultivate awareness, self-reflection, and positive habits to safeguard against negative influences. Torah study, learning, prayer, good deeds, and acts of kindness act as our spiritual firewall, encrypting our hearts against infiltration and ensuring continuous monitoring of our ethical health.
Where is the battlefield? Do you show up? Do you know who you are fighting? How well-trained and equipped are you?
This isn’t just our fight – רִיבֵנוּ.
It is the fight for our very self – רִיבֵנוּ.
More than that, because of the scope and severity of the danger, it follows that one of the most influential arms of the military is intelligence, the scouting and reconnaissance of the battlefield. We ask the Creator to see our weaknesses for clarity and insight about where the true frontlines lie, beyond the superficial struggles we might openly acknowledge – רְאֵה בְעָנְיֵנוּ. וְרִיבָה רִיבֵנוּ.
Look within
Our sages prized the idle chatter of righteous people because even then, they speak about important ideas.
In his old age in the frozen Eastern European winter, the revered Chafetz Chaim shared that he struggled to resist the temptation to sleep in late because he was old. To counter this, he would say the evil inclination was far older than the Chafetz Chaim, so perhaps the evil inclinations could rest a while longer, and the sage could go to prayers.
The evil inclination is not an external other, but the saintly rabbi recognized the urge as an external other, alien, and not true to himself.
When a child learns to ride a bike, the challenge isn’t just the physical act of pedaling and balancing but also overcoming the fear of falling. Fear is real, whispering doubts and creating excuses. It’s too hard, I’m too tired, I might fall. Recognizing these fears as obstacles to be overcome rather than intrinsic truths is the first step in conquering them and part of learning to ride a bike.
You need to identify the objective and battle line and target the enemy. Is the reason what you think it is, or are you lying to yourself? If you don’t think about this regularly or are uncertain, you are in grave danger because the enemy doesn’t wave a bright fluorescent flag.
Engage in self-dialogue with your shadow, identifying, understanding, and confronting it and recognizing its presence as separate from your highest and true self. It is essential to be honest with yourself to identify the real motives that drive your actions and decisions, cultivate self-awareness, and question your justifications and rationalizations. Without this recognition and understanding, we are in constant danger of being led astray by our desires and impulses.
R’ Eliyahu Dessler illuminates this concept with the metaphor of a battle line, the axis of choice, pinpointing where our real choices lie – nekudas habechira CITE.
In this framework, our freedom to choose originates from a specific context, shaped and informed by our individual experiences and backgrounds. For instance, someone raised in an observant Jewish environment and attending reputable yeshivas probably won’t face fundamental decisions about keeping kosher, observing Shabbos, or marrying someone Jewish. Their battles of free will might revolve around enhancing their Shabbos observance, improving their attention during prayer, or how much time they dedicate to Torah study. In contrast, someone born to an assimilated family who does a Pesach Seder and goes to shul on Yom Kippur but otherwise goes to public school and has no Jewish education will have a fundamentally different Jewish experience, where keeping Shabbos and kosher, and marrying Jewish are only distant and remote possibilities.
While free will is a universal endowment, its application is uniquely personalized. It reflects our position in a complex universe with a vast continuum of spiritual and ethical possibilities.
It has been said that life is like a deck of cards; the hand you’re dealt is determinism, and how you play is free will. You don’t control your initial trajectory in life, like birthplace, family, and early education, but for the vast majority of people, the essence of free will emerges in how we navigate these predetermined aspects of our lives, eventually seizing control of our paths through self-education and personal decisions. The axis of choice is where the essence of our free will and personal growth is truly tested and manifested, pinpoints where the battle line truly is, and reminds us that the frontlines of our moral and spiritual journey are dynamic.
Part of asking God to fight our battles suggests asking for help with discernment, recognizing which struggles we can face and which are beyond our capacity. What is and what is not your fight? What is above your capability? Are you asking too little of yourself?
In a sense, that is the meta-fight, the fight that is bigger than and supersedes all other fights and requires honesty, humility, and maturity.
Poverty is a blight on the world for various reasons, but one of them is that the stress and struggle it causes from the limitations of material resources significantly diminishes the capacity to dream and hope; they become unable to aspire and ultimately fail to realize their potential.
(!ed Shlomo – needs a killer example)
There are fights we are too poor to recognize, too weak to fight. There are Chabad houses worldwide, and there are hospital kosher meals and visits, sure, but how many of us truly and deeply love all other Jews? It’s one of the most basic fundamentals that we often fail to champion, and we aren’t getting it right consistently enough. Does it take a wave of terrorism, a war, and global antisemitism to be a little kinder to each other? When Neturei Karta is in the media rubbing shoulders with people who would gladly eradicate us, it reminds us all too easily what it looks like when Jews turn away from the suffering of other Jews.
It’s easy and normal to identify with people most comfortably like us, segregating and preferring our homogenous thin slice of people just like us from our narrow continuum of camps and schools. While it’s certainly better than nothing, it comes at a steep price, and it’s sad we settle for so little.
The diversity of practice, belief, and opinion in Jewish life today is a strength and a challenge. The phenomenon known as the narcissism of small differences suggests that the more a community shares in common, the more likely the people in it are to engage in interpersonal feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences perceived in each other.
וּגְאָלֵנוּ גְאוּלָה שְׁלֵמָה מְהֵרָה לְמַעַן שְׁמֶךָ – Redemption from where we’re not supposed to be
Not all redemptions are complete.
Far more often, you just live to fight another day.
In dire circumstances, that’s a plausible enough redemption, sure.
But ideally, we long for a complete redemption, one that restores us from all forms of displacement, be it physical, spiritual, or existential, bringing us from all the places, states, or conditions we are not supposed to be in.
The word for complete is cognate to the word for peace, a lasting state of perfect harmony – שְׁלֵמָה / שָּׁלוֹם.
We don’t want a temporary respite; it doesn’t do much good to be stuck where you are ten years from now with the same struggles as today. A complete redemption is not a grace, singular event that sweeps the globe; if exile is complex, then so is redemption. We pray for a comprehensive and multifaceted holistic redemption that touches individuals and communities at the grassroots level, that is a permanent and lasting lived reality that transforms the world from the bottom up, an enduring redemption that leaves no possibility for backsliding or relapse to exile of any kind.
As with all our prayers, but perhaps most of all, this is not a magical request for divine intervention, a quick fix, or a deus ex machina-style solution that miraculously resolves our troubles while we passively observe. It’s quite the opposite; this prayer explicitly requires an interface – us. To get unstuck, it asks us to actively engage for profound, lasting transformation, considering what we’re lacking, what we’re fighting for and against, and what redemption looks like. For all the redemptions we so badly need, this prayer needs intensity.
Our prayers are at their most potent when accompanied by a balanced common-sense approach to problem-solving. When someone has terminal cancer, and the doctors say they can no longer help, it is far too late to turn to prayer, and any prayers that follow are low-quality and hopeless by definition. The sensible thing to do is to pray from the very beginning for a smooth healing process through the hands of the doctors and treatments.
Part of our prayer is for our efforts to work, that when we show up for our battles, we succeed. Praying for our actions to bear fruit, for the strength and wisdom to navigate life’s challenges and perhaps win, is an acknowledgment that the divine assistance we seek is meant to bolster our resolve and efforts, not replace them.
Do it quick or do it right
One aphorism suggests that you can do it quickly or you can do it right, but not both.
We’re frequently confronted with the choice of achieving our goals quickly, with the risk of imperfection, or taking a deliberate, slower approach to ensure the desired outcome is achieved correctly; we understand that there are tradeoffs between competing values and priorities.
But while this dichotomy is true of humans, it’s not true of the Creator; nothing is harder than anything else, and there is no opportunity cost.
Although the exception, there are stories of instantaneous and total transformations, times people desperately wanted something, that if they got it, they’d never ask for anything again; to resolve the issue, find the right one, make a recovery, for the thing to work out okay. People pray hard in those moments, with more intention and hope than all the other times the stakes aren’t so high. Sometimes, those prayers are fulfilled, and the perfect outcome materializes.
The tumor disappears by the next scan. They meet the perfect person just as they’d given up. They make the big sale just as they are about to go out of business.
There are countless books filled with such stories, and their popularity is a product of how inspiring they are and how they supply us with hope to not give up on our own dreams and wishes. We have to be careful with these stories because they suffer from survivorship bias, the error of mistaking a visible success as representative of a larger group.
These miraculous stories have a place. Although extraordinary, they highlight the broader principle that our efforts and prayers take place on a vastly bigger landscape than we can imagine. Human endeavor is one modality of redemption; a tumor can be shrunk with chemotherapy and removed by surgery, which would be a very successful outcome. Stories of a sudden and miraculous recovery don’t negate the value of human efforts, such as medical treatment; rather, it complements them. These stories remind us that in our pursuit of redemption, we are not acting alone, and our efforts are augmented, guided, and supported in ways that may not always align with our expectations of speed or method.
We have to go slow and steady, but sometimes the magic happens suddenly all at once.
Pick your battles
We can ask God to fight our fights, sure, but which fights, though?
Our sages teach that achieving victory in the war for the soul is beyond our grasp without Divine assistance; the only way to attain meaningful and lasting triumph in life’s overarching struggles for spiritual and moral integrity is with Divine support. Our prayers affirm that God is our shadow, ever-present and mirroring our actions and intentions, inseparably following every move and guiding the way – hashem tzilcha CITE
The fight and the victory can look a lot of different ways; the answer to our prayers requires openness to both.
When someone loves to consume alcohol to the point of excess and becomes severely ill, they might have a moment of revelation in the throes of this crisis, leading to drastic change. From being entirely enslaved by addiction, the individual finds the strength to break free, achieving a state of liberation that once seemed unattainable. This transformation may seem sudden, like a miraculous overnight change, but it’s deeply rooted in the recognition of a power greater than oneself—a turning point where divine assistance and personal resolve converge.
God can fight our fights, but we must label them as fights. Don’t see it as a struggle; see it as a constant war for your soul, and you are either winning or losing. You need to see yourself capable of fighting, or you won’t last long. If you’re in the fight, it is at least possible you might find an unexpected reservoir of strength and the divine support necessary to transcend our limitations and challenges.
When we internalize the truth that God acts with us, we are empowered to face our battles with renewed strength and hope.
We can count on the Creator to fight our battles, but we have a great responsibility to show up to the right fights. An easy pitfall is to hate the sinner, not the sin, resulting in many of the negative interactions people have with otherwise observant people—Ohavei hashem sinu ra CITE.
Rebbetzin Batsheva Kanievsky was famously loving and patient. One time, a mixed group of less-affiliated young adults came to visit. One young woman was dressed below the expected standards, and a hotheaded young man from the neighborhood rushed over and shouted at her for the nerve she had to visit such a holy place dressed so disrespectfully!
Uncharacteristically, Rebbetzin Kanievsky immediately jumped to her feet and defended the visitor’s dignity over the boy’s inappropriate reprimand and screamed at the man to leave at once, that he was no longer welcome in her home. Later that night, she cried to her husband, blaming herself, wondering what she might have done wrong to have experienced somebody abusing an innocent visitor to her home.
The young man picked his battle, and the saintly woman picked hers.
R’ Baruch Ber Lebowitz reported that the first time he saw somebody violate Shabbos in public, he cried, and the second time, too. But the third time, it didn’t bother him as much anymore, and he didn’t cry; when he noticed that he was already becoming desensitized to the spiritual decline around him and in himself, he cried for that.
Pick your battles and choose how you engage. The essence of our spiritual battles lies not in ostracizing or humiliating others but in upholding our values with love, grace, and understanding.
A prerequisite to asking God to fight your fights is first picking your battles.
לְמַעַן שְׁמֶךָ – In your name
We turn to the Creator for our needs; it’s worth taking a moment to honestly consider if what we’re asking for is a want or a need and what our intentions are.
Do you want a big house to show off your expensive stuff? Or would you use it to host fundraisers and guests?
When you want something for personal reasons, it is a question of deserving and right. But when you need something in God’s name, it shifts the entire paradigm of our requests and struggles from a self-centered perspective to God at the center with us as support. When our requests are for the things we need to help align our actions with a higher purpose that transcends ourselves, fulfilling them isn’t about our personal desires or what we believe we deserve; it’s about glorifying God and upholding the sanctity of God’s name – לְמַעַן שְׁמֶךָ.
We then enter a realm where the usual considerations of merit and personal worthiness recede. Engaging in battles for God’s name means that our struggles, whether they be personal, communal, or global, are not fought for selfish gains and personal glory but for the sake of upholding and spreading divine values.
The Shem mi’Shmuel notes that while the ultimate reward is reserved for the next world, if what we seek is a means to that ultimate end, then this world is absolutely the domain to ask for those means – לְמַעַן שְׁמֶךָ.
If the things we do and the things we need are not merely acts of self-indulgence but essential components of self-care that give us the bandwidth and capacity that enable us to serve a higher cause with greater energy and dedication, they become sacred acts and essential tools in our efforts to make an impact – למענך / אני עבדך.
More profoundly, our sages teach that everything in this world, including our efforts and resources, is essentially collateral in God’s grand design, that nothing we have is an end in itself, and everything is a means to contribute to a higher purpose – הכל נותן בערבון.
We might as well recognize that and shift our perspective on our needs, deeds, and possessions and use them in service of God and humanity – לְמַעַן שְׁמֶךָ.
כִּי קל גּואֵל חָזָק אָתָּה – Strong redeemer
God’s strength is most profoundly manifested not in punishment or destruction but in redemption and deliverance, especially when it is underserved by human standards. This engages the imagery of using effort to overcome a more obvious outcome.
The Zohar notes that the Jewish People in Egypt were on the 49th level of spiritual malaise, just one notch off rock bottom, the point of no return, and did not deserve to be saved. Rav Kook notes that this explains a particular dimension to the imagery of God’s mighty and outstretched arm; it was not a demonstration of power against the oppressors but, more significantly, an act of grace towards the Jewish People, a forceful intervention and emergency rescue of a nation that had stumbled and was about to fall off a cliff – בְּיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרֹעַ נְטוּיָה.
God does not require more power to move a grape than a galaxy, and there is no difference between ten plagues and a thousand. But God’s strength is exercised in the act of redemption precisely because it overcomes justice, which would otherwise demand that consequences play out. Strength is revealed in choosing to redeem rather than to condemn, to liberate rather than to punish – גּוֹאֵל וחָזָק אָתָּה.
Mort, particularly, the Exodus story illustrates that God can redeem forcefully, and urgently if necessary. Sometimes, the ostensibly right time is still too late. There are situations where drawing things out or delaying might lead to irreversible damage; you can find yourself in an ordeal too long or stay stuck because you haven’t done the required work, but waiting like that for too long would be catastrophic.
For the times we might not really deserve it, and for the times we need to find the emergency exit, we can turn to God, the strong redeemer – כִּי קל גּואֵל חָזָק אָתָּה.
גּואֵל יִשרָאֵל – Redeems
This blessing is neither a commemoration of past redemptions nor a hopeful prayer for redemption in the distant future.
It’s a blessing in the present tense that concludes with the affirmation that the Creator is constantly and presently an ongoing source of deliverance and strength, actively engaged in our lives, addressing our pain and our needs – גּואֵל.
After Yakov’s all-night struggle with an angel, he earns the title Yisrael, “one who struggles with God and prevails;” to be Jewish is to be a fighter, to master our demons, and to stand for what is right and good for the sake of peace. And yet, in no way did Yakov earn a clear-cut victory at all; it was a stalemate that Yakov was injured in and survived, but our sages say that the dust that was kicked up from this contest rose to Heaven.
R’ Tzvi Meir Silberberg highlights that our sages herald the dust that was kicked up and went to Heaven; the dust, not the victory. The dust, the energy expended on the struggle, is what matters. Our victories are personal, and although we don’t always get to choose whether we win, we always control whether we go down without a fight.
The act of enduring the struggle and engaging in the fight defined Yaakov’s victory. As our history has taught us well, victory does not always lie in overcoming but sometimes in the perseverance and resilience to continue fighting against the odds.
In our moments of darkness, God is more than the redeemer acting on behalf of the Jewish People. In such moments, we can turn to the Creator to rekindle the spark within us and redeem the courageous spirit of Yisrael, the fighter, when our resolve wanes and our capacity to fight dims.
In moments of despair or exhaustion, when we feel we cannot pick ourselves up, when the prospect of rising again and re-entering the fray seems impossible, God can awaken the fighter within us, the element of Yisrael that enables us to rediscover our resilience and determination and reveal deeper reserves of courage, capacity, and spirit to face our challenges – גּואֵל יִשרָאֵל.
Closing
We ask God to see our pain and the things we lack, the physical deficiencies, and the emotional and spiritual voids.
The Haggadah talks about the turning point of the Exodus, how God saw the Jewish People’s pain and affliction – Vayar es anyeinu CITE
Our sages understood that their pain transcended physical hardship and reflected the deep anguish of their oppression; beyond forced labor and enslavement, one of the results of the Egyptian government’s dehumanizing policies was that people stopped having children, one of the categories of people that might be considered a living death.
Consider that the Creator promised the world to Avraham, and Avraham openly questioned the value of such a promise with no children to leave anything to.
There is an explicit prayer for good sense, good health, and finances; while there isn’t one that directly asks for children, it’s implicitly contained in this one. It is our families that we find redemption, the culmination of a promise made to Avraham long ago.
This is the point in your prayers to think about the people who are desperate to have a child.
This is the moment to think about everyone who needs a bit of redemption, whether it’s personal struggles, health, money, love, fertility, happiness, or success.
This is the time to spare a thought of empathy and solidarity for everyone fighting battles of the spirit, the quiet, often unseen fight of their lives. Don’t wait for cracks to appear before offering compassion and support.
God didn’t just redeem the Jews way back when; God redeems Yisrael today.
Story (!ed Shlomo – cut?)
A boy was about to marry a gentile, and I davened to find the words he needed to hear, and I persuaded him not to.